The Best Solo Board Games (For Beginners and Beyond)
The best board games to play alone — from quick roll-and-writes to epic campaigns — based on the community's vote-ranked favorites. Where to start, and what to grow into.
Solo board gaming has quietly become one of the best parts of the hobby. No scheduling, no waiting on a turn, no rules-explaining — just you, a table, and a tight puzzle to solve at your own pace. Whether you want a 20-minute wind-down or a hundred-hour campaign, there's a solo game for it.
Our picks lean on the BGG 1-Player Guild "People's Choice Top 200 Solo Games" (2025) — the definitive community-voted ranking — plus what beginners actually have the most fun with. (Full credit to the 1-Player Guild for that list.)
Start here (best for beginners)
If you're new to solo gaming, these are easy to learn, quick to set up, and cheap enough to dip a toe in:
- Cascadia — A serene tile-and-token puzzle you can finish before your coffee goes cold. Beautiful, low-setup, and our top "first solo game."
- Under Falling Skies — A tiny-box dice puzzle with a surprising campaign. Superb value.
- Friday — A tight, cheap solo deckbuilder built for one player, with three difficulty levels.
- Regicide — A brilliant co-op/solo game you can play with just a deck of cards — the cheapest way in.
Browse more in our Quick, Cosy & Roll-and-Write category.
The community's #1: Spirit Island
Spirit Island has topped the solo rankings for years. You play the island's spirits defending against colonizing invaders — deeply strategic, endlessly replayable, and a co-op that's arguably better solo. It's not a beginner game, but it's where many people's solo obsession ends up. See more co-ops you can solo.
Best "designed-for-one" solo games
Some games are built from the ground up for a single player — no fiddly bot to run:
- Final Girl — Survive a slasher movie in a modular, high-replay horror game.
- For Northwood! — A clever solo trick-taker that fits in a pocket.
- Friday and Warp's Edge — small, punchy, purpose-built solo experiences.
See the full Solo-Only category.
Best solo card games & deckbuilders
Living card games dominate the solo top tier — build a deck, beat a scenario, tweak, repeat:
- Marvel Champions: The Card Game — The easiest great card game to learn solo; pick a hero and go.
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game — Narrative campaign gold where your choices carry forward.
- Aeon's End — A co-op deckbuilder where you never shuffle.
More in Card Games & Deckbuilders.
Best solo campaigns (for the long haul)
When you want to live in a game for weeks:
- Gloomhaven — The genre-defining 95-scenario tactical dungeon-crawl.
- Mage Knight — The deepest solo puzzle on the table; a brain-burner for veterans.
- Sleeping Gods and Robinson Crusoe — open-world story and tense survival, respectively.
See all Campaigns & Legacy.
How solo modes work (the quick version)
Solo games fall into a few buckets: beat-your-own-score (Cascadia), an automa/bot you run as an opponent (Terraforming Mars, Gaia Project), co-ops played alone (Spirit Island, Pandemic), and designed-for-one games (Final Girl). A handy buyer tip from the community: before buying a multiplayer game for its solo mode, check BGG's recommended player counts — some bolt-on solo modes are admin-heavy.